


Dudley's first day at Smeltings

by 5972OltonHall



Series: 1991 – and thus it begins/what JKR missed…. [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 1: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Bullying, Gen, Smeltings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 21:30:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18507460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5972OltonHall/pseuds/5972OltonHall
Summary: Dudley Dursley was a confirmed bully, everyone back in Little Whinging knew it, but as a new boy at Smeltings it was a new beginning. A look at how Dudley might have fared as he entered his new school in 1991.Broadly canon compliant with one, minor, change.Usual disclaimer. Anything borrowed, whether from canon or elsewhere, remains the copyright of the originator(s)/publisher(s), the rest is my copyright. (See also Notes)





	Dudley's first day at Smeltings

Dudley Dursley was a confirmed bully, everyone back in Little Whinging knew it, but as a new boy at Smeltings it was a new beginning. Only a couple of hours ago he’d arrived with his father, fresh and eager to start the new term and already looking for a position in the hierarchy of first years where he could domineer and push around his dorm-mates. 

His arrival had been an extravaganza of what his father, Vernon, had decreed was first class ordinariness. Dudley’s school trunk was gleaming metal but had been slightly distressed and fastened with care worn leather straps so as not to look too new. His parents had also stuck on a few luggage labels scrounged from Vernon’s sister Marge showing mid-range European destinations: one was not be seen as too ostentatious, but equally not to be thought of as un-cosmopolitan. Their silver Ford Sierra, polished to mirror like perfection by Dudley’s cousin Harry (despite the fact that Harry himself was not to ride in it), screamed out of place amongst the line-up of expensive cars, mostly Mercedes and Range Rovers, in the car park. Vernon had neither grasped the non-U way it identified itself as a company fleet car, nor noticed that although most of the cars were definitely on the expensive side anything truly classic like an Alvis, a Bentley or a Rolls Royce was missing. I tell a lie as there was one white Rolls, which belonged to a pop-star, but the addition of the leopard skin seat covers undoubtedly pushed it into the tacky segment. That one was most definitely deliberate, visible, ostentation.

Several second-year boys had been deputed to take the new pupils’ luggage to their allocated dormitory. That they had volunteered for this task was the official, erroneous, description! After an introductory buffet the Dursley pair had been ushered into the school hall for a mandatory assembly. Here Dudley and his father, a former alumnus of Smeltings, were mixed in with the other new intake. This was a second-rate private school, lacking in educational quality, and only gaining favour amongst the vain; whatever social status it may have held was in full retreat. Had they been more socially adept on seeing the new intake en-masse they would have noticed the odour of true wealth was absent. 

The first years stuck out amongst their uniform clad elders. They had been specifically instructed not to wear their uniforms on arrival. Whether it was deliberately intended by the school to make them feel inferior and junior on this, their first day, it was what occurred. The juniors and their relatives were seated at the front. Behind them dressed in the rather absurd, and old-fashioned look, sat the seniors, a swathe of maroon, topped off with straw boaters. The first years immediately realising they were a minority and, as yet, the outsiders.

It was not long before Dudley began to realise that continuing with his bullying inclinations might come up against a barrier of modernity. His father had indicated that in his time at Smeltings aggression and force had been the way to forge prestige. Whilst that had undoubtedly been true back in Vernon’s day, the small fact that Vernon had been a victim, not a victor, was part of the story of his schooldays that he’d held back from his son. Sadly, it had soured Vernon’s character so deeply that when he had the chance, in turn, to bully his infant nephew he took it at every turn.

As the Head concluded his introductory speech with the pacifist reading from Isaiah chapter 2 verse 4, about turning swords into ploughshares and not taking up arms he also remarked that although the Smeltings Sticks were still a part of the school’s tradition, they were now to be regarded as purely ceremonial. This truly disappointed Dudley who, from his glances around the hall, had already identified several of the smaller boys as potential targets to feel the weight of his own stick. Vernon, in his turn spluttered and mumbled under his breath, “What’s the school coming to. I’ll have to have words with that man. The sticks maketh the boy,” and other equally obnoxious phrases but with a few ruder words embedded! 

Vernon was all for ordinariness, and his world being fair, open and honest was not an ordinary activity. In business it was dog eat dog, cheat, manipulate and devour - the opposition was always fair game. He would reap any ill-gotten gain Grunnings could take. What he could not grasp was that the tide was turning, the business world was becoming fairer, loyalty and partnership the new dawn. No longer was it the norm to demonstrate the product, take the potential customer out to a boozy lunch, whilst not drinking yourself, and then make the sales pitch to the boozed-up punter. Whilst Vernon was actually highly skilled at working out the costings and supply logistics involved in the manufacturing of high quality industrial drills he had a lot to learn about crafting a successful sales pitch. 

After his father had left, and the new boys were being ushered through to the dorm blocks, it dawned on Dudley he was almost alone. His old friend and bullying partner, Piers Pollkiss, had also come to Smeltings, and would probably still be loyal to him, but this was a new era. He’d had been the pack leader back in Little Whinging because he was the big fish in the small pond. Here he was a rather overweight, chubby child, with no social graces to make new friends, in this pond there were already bigger fish than Dudley and Piers. He was sensing that, for at least this first year, he was going to be bottom of the stack. Not only that, he would be bottom of a stack where many of the boys around him were leaner and fitter than him. On the notice board he passed he saw a poster for the school boxing club. He thought joining that would be a wise first move. If he was to have any credibility, any power in these new surroundings, he was going to have to earn it. 

That, in due course, he did take up boxing and encompass all the discipline that the sport requires was to prove the first tiny link in the chain that would eventually lead to his becoming a reasonably rounded adult.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) Believed to be broadly canon compliant with HP & The Philosopher's Stone. 
> 
> 2) JKR does mention that Dudley took up boxing whilst at Smeltings, but not until Book 5 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). I have moved this fact forward in a minor departure from canon.
> 
> 3) COPYRIGHT - All references to the Harry Potter characters, scenarios and locations mentioned are fully recognised as the intellectual property of J K Rowling and her subsequent publishers and no commercial benefits are being accrued or claimed. However, any originally created locations, characters, and plot suggestions found solely within this work, remain mine.


End file.
